Murder in South Knoxville: The Strange Case of Lottie Cummings.

Just past Mead’s Quarry on Island Home Pike, less than half a mile south of the Tennessee river, the stretch of road between the quarry and Sevierville Pike, a distance of about two miles, is as peaceful as any in South Knoxville. It’s one of those neighborhoods that doesn’t appear to have a ready name of its own; few landmarks exist there today, only a few scattered houses and a couple of churches. But in the summer of 1893, this section of South Knoxville proved to be the scene of the ghastly murder of 9-year-old Louis Kinzie Cummings.The murder and its aftermath were extensively covered in the Knoxville newspapers. What quickly became apparent was that Mrs. Lottie Cummings, an uneducated 35-year-old woman, was suspected of bludgeoning her nine-year-old stepson. And as Mrs. Cummings sat in her cell in the Knox County jail, the murder case took several unexpected twists, revealing interesting local color, that during everyday course of events might not have ever been known about this section of South Knoxville.Please note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence taken from contemporary newspaper accounts from the 1890s.Written by Paul James and read by Bonnie Kourvelas. Special thanks to producer Pete Carty. Knoxville Chronicles is brought to you by the nonprofit Knoxville History Project.Funding for this episode has been kindly provided by the City of Knoxville and Friends of the Knoxville History Project as well as donors from National Giving Day 2025, including: Gary Balltrip, Theresa Lee and Jacob Love, John and Lillian Mashburn, Susan Davenport, Katharine Capito Torbett & Howard Capito, Anne Young, and Christopher Manning.Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org